The Regiment v. The Routine

           We hear all the time about the “same old routine.” By its very definition, a routine is just the same old same old. It is boring. It is mundane. I thank goodness that I do not have a routine but what I do have is a regiment. My boss at work (who luckily is also one my best friends) chastises me over the fact that you can pretty much set your watch by my schedule. He believes you have to take different routes to work and arrive at different times to be able to throw off the assassins. You don’t want to make their job easy for them. And yet, I leave the house at almost the same time every day.
           I eat the same breakfast. I eat my morning snack at the same time. I eat my lunch at the same time. I eat my afternoon snack at the same time. I am in bed at the same time. I wake at the same time (pretty much). While I know this sounds routine but let me tell you what this also gets me. 
           I get necessary sleep for recovery. I am never hungover headed into work. I cannot remember the last time I was sick. I am not out until all hours of the night. And while this sounds like a boring life, I can also tell you that my bills are paid on time, every time. 
           I told you from the beginning that this journey is about improvement of body, mind, and spirit. It is an odd thing. Once you start seeing results – and I mean real results – it becomes this wonderfully addictive drug but it is a drug of self-improvement.
           You start out saying, “I am going to lift some weights but I am not going to be supplement guy.” Then the results start and you want more. So now you are doing the research. You see how whey protein and Vitamin B and C can help you. Then that starts snowballing.
           The Little Debbie snack cakes start to fade away. To make sure you have a good healthy meal for lunch, you start planning ahead and cooking pounds of chicken in the crockpot the night before. You start investing in Tupperware. You are buying flats of green beans and planning snacks rather than just eating whatever is easily at hand. You start seeing beer for what it really is – liquid bread. And then you start making choices. Do you really want another beer knowing how time it is going to take on the treadmill to get rid of it?
           Now, I don’t want you to take this wrong way. I am not against having a few social drinks with some friends every now and again. There are days where a nice cold beer after a hard day’s work or after excessive time out mowing the lawn is perfectly acceptable. But as your training continues, you begin to cut out things that are going to jeopardize the next day’s training.
           A drink is fine. Falling down blackout drunk is not acceptable. At my age, it would take me days to recover from such nonsense. And for what? A momentary escape from reality? I like my life. What do I need to escape from? In the words of that once popular internet meme, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”  
           I am not telling anyone how to live their life here. I am not so vain as to believe I can shake a moral finger at you and tell you what to do. As always, this blog has been about what works for me. But over the last year, I have seen dramatic improvements in my life. I feel better. I feel healthier. My mind has become more studious as I have been doing research on how to make improvements. This process has taught me patience. It has taught me that hard work put in daily through small increments pays off tremendously in the long run.
           It is not just about lifting the weights. It is about packing the gym bag the night before to make sure you have everything. It is about smart planning at the grocery store. You find that striving to be the best you can be in the gym starts bleeding over and improving other aspects of your life as well. And that, my friends, is pretty darn awesome…

Band Training

           I have been doing this program for some 89 weeks and during this whole time, I had never used those elastic bands with the handles in my workouts. I just assumed they were wimpy resistance training with little old ladies with artificial hips. And then I read an article regarding the science behind them.

           Now, I am not saying that you should train exclusively with bands. There is no way a band is ever going to replace good old fashioned dumbbell work. But let’s looks at some science here. I want you to imagine performing a Barbell Bench Press with chains hanging off the ends of the bar. This is not just a length of dangling chain. It is a length of chain that is piled on the floor. At the bottom of the lift, there is more chain making contact with the floor (therefore less weight) and as the bar is lifted high, there is more chain being suspended in the air. This way, the higher up you lift the weight the heavier it becomes.

           Bands are the exact same way. The farther you stretch them the more resistance is created. Typically, with Dumbbell Curls, the hardest part of the curl is the start of the lift. If failure is going to occur, it is going to happen between the start of the lift and halfway up. Typically, if you can get that weight past that “point of no return,” you should be able to complete the rest of the lift because you have made it past the crux of the lift. Everything else is “downhill” so to speak. Another way to classify the rest of that lift is with the term “garbage time.”

           Band training offers you the exact opposite. The further up you get with a curl using the bands, the harder it is going to be to complete. This allows you to achieve maximum contraction and you will feel the difference in the morning.

           Obviously bands are not something to build a workout around but, holy cow, what a way to finish a workout. You can achieve multiple lifts very quickly which is going to fire those fast-twitch muscle fibers. 

           Remember what I have stressed from the beginning: attacking from multiple angles. This is an entirely different muscle attack because the resistance is unlike what you can get through dumbbell or barbell lifts. It is very easy to rip out as many reps as possible, going to failure, and really exhausting those muscles with a technique that cannot be achieved through dumbbells.

           Now, it is tough to feel manly working with bands. Again, it feels like the same tool that little old lady with hip replacement uses but if used correctly to finish off your workout, they are phenomenal.

Furyan Reviews: Branch Chain Amino Acids

           I have mentioned in the past about how supplements can improve your bodybuilding experience. Just like yesterday’s article, if you are coming in late, here is a simple breakdown. Think of your nutrition as a castle wall. The nutrients from food are the big blocks of granite that form the wall. Supplements are the mortar that holds everything together. It fills in the gaps between the stones, binds everything together, and keeps that wall upright when those rousey mongorians come to tear down your chitty wall. Supplements on their own do little but when mixed together, they make that wall strong.

           My list of supplements is pretty small. I take Vitamin B, E & fish oil for my metabolism and my heart, Vitamin C for my immune system, and CLAs and Green Tea Extract to help me burn fat. While I got away from it recently, I have returned to having a whey protein shake when I get home after my workout, and I do a casein protein shake before bed.

           Now, the Whey Protein shake is fortified with BCAAs but I only use one scoop, so I am not getting the full recommended dosage that the company recommends which is three scoops. The human body can only absorb about 30 grams of protein in a sitting so to me, that is just protein overkill to get their full dosage of BCAAs.

           So why not just take BCAAs? So a few weeks ago, that is what I started.

           Amino Acids are very important to bodybuilding because they provide two essential things that we are looking for. Muscle retention and fat loss. Back in the day, professional bodybuilder Frank Zane was known as “The Chemist” because he was a big believer in amino acids and other supplementation. And let’s face facts. Google Image Search “Frank Zane.” The man’s physique is darn near perfect and his contest weight was usually around 185 pounds. It would be amazing to shrink down to that size and have his muscle definition. So if it works for Zane, I thought I would give it a try.

           I opted for the BPI Sports brand of Best Aminos which you blend into water. Most people acquire the necessary amino acids through food. In order for this to occur, you have to eat the food, it has to get processed by your body, and then pumped into your blood stream. The benefit of adding Amino Acids through supplement is that the fuel gets absorbed directly into your blood stream. Your body then utilizes them as fuel while you are working out to stimulate your muscle growth. They offer a fruit punch blend that if you mix with the right amount of water is pretty tasty.

           There is a series of debates as far as when you should consume these. I take mine about 10 minutes before I hit the gym. (My commute time is very short.) On average, I would say that my workouts last approximately 75 to 90 minutes. If I was going in for a four hour session, taking the amino acids the middle of your workout would be very beneficial. But I don’t have that kind of stamina and the last thing that I want to do is stop in the middle of my workout, mix up a batch of the stuff, swig it, and keep going. Taking it to start is just a more viable option for me. 

           Now, there are a lot of supplements that claim they will make you stronger. This is not the case. You don’t just take them and instantly become stronger. You take them, you gain energy and fuel, and you get 10 reps where you normally might have only mustered 9. Those extra reps and that ability to go harder is what make you stronger.

           I started my week with trying some new chest routines which I thought would have left me pretty sore. That was on Monday. I did a second chest day on Wednesday. And on Friday I added several sets of Incline Push-Ups with my arm routines. My soreness afterwards feels considerably less that it should be. I like to believe that is because of the amino acids.

           So I feel that BCAAs are definitely something I will continue to add to my supplements. I can tell you what oligopeptides do. I have not researched that far ahead yet. But I like them. Do your research and they might help you out too.

 

Maximum Effort

           As I have discussed already, my goal with the majority of my workouts is to achieve hypertrophy.  Hypertrophy is the best of both worlds between strength training and endurance training where you will see an improvement in both strength and size.

            For a quick recap if you have come to the blog late, powerlifters have rep ranges of 3 to 5 reps lifting practically their 1 Rep Max with every set and there are long rest sessions in between to dump that lactic acid out of your muscles. People looking to burn more fat should be performing rep ranges of around 15 to 20 with most exercises because the muscles are under tension for longer time and that results in more calories burned. (This is really the rep range that I should be doing because I want to strip that layer of fat and not necessarily get bigger.) But if you want the best of both worlds, your target rep range is between 8 and 10. I have said that you want to perform those first eight reps slowly and with surgical precision. Then if you have to cheat to get Reps 9 and 10, that is perfectly fine. However, if you can achieve 12 reps (while still maintaining good form), it is time to increase the weight by 5 pounds.

           But now let’s talk about those reps. I think there are times where we get too mentally conditioned by counting. I often wish I could have a partner that would just watch me do exercises and count my reps for me. Imagine just focusing on going to muscle failure, lifting as much as you can as many times as you can, and then turning to your partner and asking, “Okay, how many was that?” Then if they say 12, you increase the weight.

           Many times we give up at 10 because that is the prescribed number of reps when really you might have three more in the tank. But mentally, you know the goal is 10 and you stop at the 10 count. It is like the scene in the book Jurassic Park where they had the computer set to account for many raptors they thought they had, never thinking that there could be more raptors on the island than just the ones they created. You count to 10 when really you can get 12 but you stop because you have reached the mental limit instead of the true physical limit.

           This is where you really have to learn to listen to your body and be willing to push beyond the pain. With some exercises this is considerably easier to do. With things like Dumbbell Curls, it is rather easy to go until you just cannot physically lift that weight anymore. Exercises like Barbell Squats or Barbell Bench Presses are much more intimidating because what if you drop the weight down and you cannot push it back up? That is usually what a spotter is for but what if you are like me and you work out by yourself? That is one of the major disadvantages.

           Now, some will tell you – and I agree with this – to leave one rep in the tank. If I am performing my first set of Barbell Bench Presses, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to compromise my second and third sets by going overboard on that first set. If ever there is a time to push beyond those limits, I try to reserve for that final set before switching to that next exercise.

           However, if you want true hypertrophy, you cannot just slap on any weight, perform 8 to 10 reps, and expect to achieve it. You want to perform those 8 to 10 reps with a heavy enough weight that you cannot perform 15 reps. If you can perform a weight for 15 reps before achieving muscle failure but you are only doing 10 reps, you are not working as hard as possible. That is going through the motions. That is being lazy. And that is the antithesis of Furyan Strength. Remember, you are working to the maximum of your ability. I don’t care if the guy beside you is doing 100 pounds and you are only doing 50. If 50 pounds is the maximum of your ability, be darn proud that you are pushing yourself to the edge of the envelope. That is how you become the hardest worker in the room. That’s how you achieve Furyan Strength.

Motivation Monday

Be Your Own Renaissance Man

           In the movie Renaissance Man, Danny DeVito is discussing Leon Battista Alberti who was an Italian humorist, author, artist, poet, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer amongst other things. According to the dialogue of the movie, “They said that he could stand, with his feet together like this, and spring straight over a man's head.” To which DeVito’s character says, “If Leon Battista Alberti couldn't have done that, I wouldn't have remembered a thing about him.”

            This made him an oxymoron. It made him a smart jock. Now, what have I said since the beginning? Furyan Strength is about developing your body, mind, and spirit. Keeping your body sharp will also help keep your mind sharp and I think it works the other way too. Before I started this journey I had no clue what whey protein did for my body. Or BCAAs. Or why I should take Vitamin E. Or the importance of muscle balance and symmetry. I think most people associate all bodybuilders as dumb jocks who just lift heavy weights. But listen to any of the testimony of Dr. Jim Stoppani and I don’t think anyone can deny that lifting weights is a science. But then I saw an image on the internet that really made me think.

Tough but Truthful Talk

          I hear women talk all the time how they want to have the butt of this pop star or the shape of this movie star. Just diet and genetics are not going to do it for you. If you want a big butt (or strangely if you also want to get rid of your big butt), you HAVE to squat and deadlift. That is going to build those butt muscles more than hours on the treadmill.
          We are told all the time how men like women with curves. No one wants to cuddle with a stick at night. And “boys like a little more booty to hold at night.” Speaking for myself as a representative of Man Nation, I can tell you that this is true.
          In February 2015, it was national news when Ashley Graham – a “plus size” model made it into the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. (For the record, she didn’t make it in the issue. She was the spokesmodel for an ad for Swimsuits For All which ran in the issue.) In an article I was reading, she was labeled as a “size-16 beauty.” She was quoted as saying: “Jennifer Lawrence is the media's poster girl for curves — she's tiny.  There needs to be more education in schools, because that's where eating disorders start. It's not just about being healthy; it's also about loving who you are."
          And Ms. Graham is right. Earlier that year, Jennifer Lawrence was labeled as “curvy” and did a picture shoot with a boa constrictor. I think it is the new socially acceptable way of calling a girl “fat” much the same way that “thug” has now replaced describing someone without using the N-word. But if you think Jennifer Lawrence is fat, you have a seriously skewed view.

          And then lo and behold, last week, guess who is featured on the cover of the 2016 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Yep, Ashley Graham. And you better believe she looks amazing!
          Yes, I will go on record that Ashley Graham is an amazingly beautiful woman. She is billed as a size 16 but she can wear a bikini and make it look good. To paraphrase Walder Frey, I bet when she takes that dress off everything stays right where it is.
          So let’s be real honest here. Curves are sexy. Fat is not. Cellulite is not attractive. When things begin to fold and hang over other things, it is not attractive. I am sorry, ladies. It is the truth. But I am talking for both men and women here. This is why you see more pictures of Channing Tatum without his shirt than Jonah Hill.
          I think that people just get too darn caught up in the numbers. I am 5’11” and (as of this writing) I weigh 249 pounds. Conversely, WWE wrestler John Cena is billed as 6’1” and weighs 249 pounds. I have a very distinct feeling that his 249 and my 249 are way, way different.
          But what if told you that it swings the other way too? Just because you can fit into a size 4 dress does not mean you are going to immediately be more attractive than someone who is a size 10. That woman wearing a size 10 might have a rear end that looks like an upside-down heart that country music guys write songs about. If it is big and shapely and swallows up a g-string, yes, most men are going to find that more attractive than a stick figure. 

          This is where I think women need to quit obsessing strictly over their dress sizes. Do you really think Gina Carano or Ronda Rousey are worried about the diameter of their thighs? I seriously doubt it. Because of their work ethic, if they gain an inch diameter on their thighs, it is going to be because they are packing on muscle. No dude ever in the history of dues is going to complain about that.
          So if you are a woman picking up the weight for the first time, I would judge your progress not by your body weight and/or dress size but by the amount of iron you are pushing. Yes, you might gain pounds on the scale but what if you elevate from bench pressing 45 pounds to 75 pounds? To me, those are numbers to be proud of.
          But I think women are afraid to pick up weights because they have a stereotypical image in their mind of a female bodybuilder. We think of those Eastern European “women” who you are convinced might be taking horse steroids. “Eww, I don’t want to get all big and bulky.” To which I want to reply, “I have been doing this for a year trying to get big and bulky and I cannot accomplish it!!!” If you are looking at women in bodybuilding competition photos, these are the 1% that train like machines.
          I guarantee you that every woman in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue does some sort of weight training. I am not saying they are slapping on four of the 45 lb. plates and squatting 225 pounds but they are doing some sort of weight training.
          If you are afraid that you are going to get all veiny and have stuff start bulging out in places… don’t. Again, doing one Google Image Search is going to represent the top 1% of these female bodybuilders. And like all photo shoots, they are getting oiled up and working out beforehand. It is not a representation of real life.
          And if it makes you feel any better, guys have the same kind of “body envy” as women do. Or at least I do. I see guys like John Cena, Chris Evans, and Hugh Jackman and I want to look like them. But Hugh doesn’t look like the Wolverine 24/7. And Chris Pratt likes beer way too much to be in Star Lord shape all the time.
          What I am saying is don’t let your dress size determine your success. I think if you ask 100 men, they would tell you that they prefer a size 10 that is filled out and shapely over a woman that is a size 4, never visits the gym, and is rail thin simply through diet and genetics. 
          So, seriously ladies, don’t be afraid to get clanging and banging.